We Bow To The Evil That Is Poisoning A Generation

ANTHONY LEWIS

October 29, 1996|ANTHONY LEWIS and The New York Times

The Clinton administration says its policy toward the accused Bosnian Serb war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic is that they will be arrested if encountered by soldiers of the Dayton Implementation Force in Bosnia. But that is not the real policy, as the following story shows.

Professor Charles Ingrao of Purdue University, a political and diplomatic historian specializing in Central Europe, has just returned from his second extensive visit to Bosnia this year. He gave a lecture at IFOR headquarters in Sarajevo. Then an international official drove him to Pale, the Bosnian Serb capital.

After they crossed the boundary of the Serbian entity, the official pointed out Karadzic's home. It was a large house on a mountainside.

When they got to Pale, they drove to the headquarters of the International Police Task Force. The official went inside, and Ingrao waited in the car in the parking lot.

A few minutes later a Bosnian Serb military jeep drove up. Radovan Karadzic was in the front passenger seat.

Ingrao asked a Swedish officer who was there about what was, to him, a startling sight. The Swede said it was nothing unusual - Karadzic drove back and forth to Pale several times a day.

"Anyone could have arrested him," Ingrao said when he told me the story. "A dozen members of the international police force were there. There was even an open field where a helicopter could have landed. Radovan Karadzic in a parking lot!''

Stunned by what he had seen, Ingrao spoke about it with IFOR officers and officials from the United States and the European Union. All, without exception, told him that no effort was being made to arrest the wanted war criminal; indeed, the word was out to steer clear of that idea. One official said: "Our guys are afraid we're going to run into Karadzic."

The Dayton peace agreements included a commitment to arrest accused war criminals. But the United States, which organized the Dayton conference, is essentially ignoring the promise - and not only in Serb-held territory. A leading Croat on the list of those indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal, Dario Kordic, lives openly in Zagreb and has been seen at functions attended by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman.

Other Dayton promises have been forgotten on the ground in Bosnia, especially in the Serb-held territory. There is no freedom of movement across boundaries. Refugees trying to return to the homes from which they were expelled by the Serbs have been terrorized.

What he saw in the Serb-held part of Bosnia made Ingrao despair. He said he felt as if he were seeing the preparation for more terrible history, with America standing by indifferent.

"This is the real moral crisis of our government, not Whitewater," he said. "We're allowing a Balkan Nazi state to survive, poisoning the whole area for a generation.

"It seems like a deal - the Serbs won't make trouble for us if we don't arrest war criminals. But those Bosnian Serb leaders couldn't withstand a two-week air bombardment with their forces at full strength. Why should we make such a deal?''

President Clinton evidently wants to be sure that nothing in Bosnia rocks the boat before Election Day. And American military leaders, gripped by the Colin Powell doctrine, do not want to risk casualties for any reason. So we stand by while the inventors of "ethnic cleansing" continue that murderous process and mock justice for themselves.

In the process the hope that Dayton raised, of a Bosnia restored, has been all but destroyed. Reports from the country say that the lines of religious-nationalist division are becoming ever deeper. The decision just made to postpone municipal elections a second time both reflects and exacerbates that reality.

Bowing to evil, which is what the decision to let the mass-murderers go free amounts to, has had fatal consequences: fatal for Bosnia and fatal for the rule of law in the world.

Readers may write to Anthony Lewis at The New York Times, 229 W. 43rd St., New York, N.Y. 10036.